Something Funny Happened on the Way to the Goldwater Rule

PSYCHIATRY & SOCIETY

Something familiar, something peculiar.

Something for everyone, a comedy tonight.

Something appealing, something appalling.

Something for everyone, a comedy tonight.

Nothing with kings, nothing with crowns.

Bring on the lovers, liars and clowns.

Goodness and badness, man in his madness.

This time it all turns out just right.

Tragedy tomorrow, comedy tonight.

The newest book from Bandy X. Lee, MD, "The Much More Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 50 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Warn Anew" was recently released and it got H. Steven Moffic, MD, thinking about the Goldwater Rule.

What does the song "Comedy Tonight" have to do with the Goldwater Rule? As it turns out, the song is from Stephen Sondheim's Something Funny Happened on the Way to the Forum, which experienced a revival in the early 1970s, just as the Goldwater Rule was coming into being.

Moffic shares some of the interesting history, twists and turns, of the Goldwater Rule, including some curious coincidences, as he ponders the role of psychiatry in society. Should psychiatrists lend their expertise in discussing leaders and societal issues? He doesn't limit these thoughts to the current president, as their have been concerns about the mental health of past presidents.

"We're faced now with how much we want to go along with the Goldwater Rule, especially if we're members of the American Psychiatric Association, which I am," Moffic said. "We're in a stage now where there's starting to be problems from the administrative policies changing and we're losing resources, psychiatric medications are being called into question and so forth."

"I think I think we're kind of in a soul searching stage," he added. "Do we stand by quietly as all this happening or do we express our opinion? And, how do we express it? The Goldwater rule explicitly focuses on not talking about individuals in the public view, but you can talk about policies."

Dr Moffic is an award-winning psychiatrist who specialized in the cultural and ethical aspects of psychiatry and is now in retirement and retirement as a private pro bono community psychiatrist. A prolific writer and speaker, he has done a weekday column titled “Psychiatric Views on the Daily News” and a weekly video, “Psychiatry & Society,” since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. He was chosen to receive the 2024 Abraham Halpern Humanitarian Award from the American Association for Social Psychiatry. Previously, he received the Administrative Award in 2016 from the American Psychiatric Association, the one-time designation of being a Hero of Public Psychiatry from the Speaker of the Assembly of the APA in 2002, and the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in 1991. He presented the third Rabbi Jeffrey B. Stiffman lecture at Congregation Shaare Emeth in St. Louis on Sunday, May 19, 2024. He is an advocate and activist for mental health issues related to climate instability, physician burnout, and xenophobia. He is now editing the final book in a 4-volume series on religions and psychiatry for Springer: Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Christianity, and now The Eastern Religions, and Spirituality. He serves on the Editorial Board of Psychiatric Times.